SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Ladies, does it ever feel like you get hit at the cash register a little harder than men?
It’s a fact. Women do most of the shopping and stores figured that fact out. Tracy Crowell runs Crowell Advertising in Salt Lake. He says, “Women shop more. They care more about themselves.” Crowell says because of that, often, products marketed towards the ladies will come at a premium.
Crowell says, “They want to buy the best out there for their skin. It needs to last. It needs to help them last. And men are just kinda give me the dirt t-shirt. I’ll wash my face with hand soap and I’m gone.”
So, taking action for you, we went shopping to see if that theory holds true. Sure enough, at the stores we shopped, we found example after example.
We found Nivea body wash for men for $5.99. A similar product clearly marketed for women was a dollar more.
The standard Blistex medicated lip balm has identical active ingredients to the “Silk & Shine,” but we paid 76 cents more for the pretty one in pink and purple.
Degree deodorant for both men and women have the same active ingredients but the men get a fraction more product and pay $1.31 less.
Schick razor blades for men and women both cost $9.91 but the men’s package comes with two more razors.
And it costs 50 cents more for women’s Hanes socks. Perhaps we’re paying for the pink stitching?
We contacted the makers of each of these products. Neither Hanes nor Nivea responded. Blistex says the difference in price comes from real silk extract in the women’s product. Schick and Degree both said the prices are set by the store selling them.
But at Associated Foods, Marketing Director Roger White tells us most of the pricing, in fact, does come from the manufacturer. White says, “We actually prefer those costs to be the same. I mean it’s much easier for us to line price things, and it’s more complicated for us to have different prices.”
We took our results back to Crowell who was not surprised. He says, “They spend more money thinking they’re getting a better product. They don’t want to settle for what the men settle for, so marketers play to that.”
Crowell offers this advice to savvy female shoppers, “Follow the guys and buy what they buy.”
